Happy Song · John Petrucci

222 bars at 155 BPM -- fast, and 5:41 of it without a break -- on crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick.

150 BPM and up
TEMPO
155 BPM
TIME
4/4
BARS
222
LENGTH
5:41
DIFFICULTY
68/100
THE BEAT

One bar, and 34% of the song

The beat the song is built on is one bar, played through bars 9-11, 13-15 and 17, and 28 more places -- 34.4% of every bar the kit plays. That is the spine of it; everything else is what happens around it.

LOOP · 155 BPM
HAPPY SONG · BAR 10
THE BEAT, WRITTEN OUT →
THE FILLS

Where it comes off the beat

26 fills to learn, played 41 times: bars 7, 8, 18, 26, 61, 62 and 35 more.

LOOP · 155 BPM
BARS 7-8 · LANDS ON BAR 9 · PLAYED 2 TIMES
LOOP · 155 BPM
BAR 18 · LANDS ON BAR 19
LOOP · 155 BPM
BAR 26 · LANDS ON BAR 27 · PLAYED 3 TIMES
LOOP · 155 BPM
BARS 61-62 · LANDS ON BAR 63 · PLAYED 2 TIMES

22 more fills are written out on the fills page.

EVERY FILL, WRITTEN OUT →
THE SHAPE

How the song is built

222 bars across 18 sections: 140 keep time, 41 are fills, 16 are stops and 1 is silent. The longest unbroken stretch of time is bars 208-222.

PART B
PART J
CHORUS
PART N
CHORUS 2
CHORUS 3
PART AI
PART AV
CHORUS 5
OUTRO 2
10 groovesFAIGNAV+5Fill into the next barFill that ends a sectionInto the next partStop / hitRest

Questions

What BPM is Happy Song?

155 BPM, in 4/4, with the time kept in thirty-second notes. At that speed the thirty-second notes are the whole difficulty, so the room will take it down to a quarter of it and climb back.

Is Happy Song hard to play on drums?

68 out of 100: demanding, mostly on the independence between the hands and the feet. The beat itself is 50 out of 100; the rest of the number is everything around it.

How long is the drum part?

222 bars, about 5:41 at the written tempo. The course breaks it into 79 exercises over 24 sittings, about 27 minutes each.

What do I need on the kit?

crash, ride, hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom, floor tom and kick. That is most of a full kit; the part moves around it rather than sitting in one place.

How many fills are in Happy Song?

26 fills to learn, played 41 times: bars 7, 8, 18, 26, 61, 62 and 35 more.

READ OFF THE SCORE ITSELF · 222 BARS ANALYSED
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